Sally Bishop eBook

“Oh—­don’t!” she moaned.
But he took no notice. The impetus he had gained,
carried him on. She could not stop him now.

“They were not much, certainly,” he went
on; “not much compared with what I wanted in
return. What I wanted in return, was what no
gentleman has the right to expect from any woman who
is straight unless she willingly offers it—­and
you had called me a gentleman. Do you remember
that? I don’t suppose you really knew when
you said it, how much you were saving yourself from
me. I wouldn’t suggest that credit were
due to me for a moment—­it isn’t.
It was just the same as telling a man to do a brave
act, when only the doing of it could save his life.
I did it because I had to. To be a gentleman
is often one chance in a lifetime, and the man who
doesn’t take it is not fit for hanging.
Birth has nothing to do with it. You offered
me my chance—­I took it—­that’s
all. But now you want to deprive me of my one
consolation. You want to refuse that bangle.
I refuse to take it back.”

Sally turned and faced him. Her lips were set—­her
eyes had strange lights in them. She looked—­as
she felt—­upon the scaffold of indecision,
with the noose of fate about her neck.

“Oh, it is so hard! Why is it so hard?”
she whispered.

“Why is what so hard?”

“This—­all this.”

He laughed ironically. Either he would not see,
or he could not see. Men may not be so dense
as they appear. Sometimes it is a subconscious
cunning that aids them in forcing half the initiative
into the hands of the woman.

“Surely, it can’t be so difficult a job
to just snap the catch of that bracelet on your wrist,
and forget all about whether I ought to have given
it you or not.”

“Then what?” His whole manner changed.
Now she had told him definitely. Now he knew
without a shadow of doubt. She cared. It
was even swaying in her mind whether she could bear
to lose him, notwithstanding all he had said.
It did not seem to him that he had worked her up to
it. In that moment, he exonerated himself of all
blame. He had danced gentleman to the clapping
of her hands and the stamping of her foot; and if
it came to this, that she cared for him more than
convention, more than any principle, then it was not
in his nature to force a part upon himself and play
it, night after night, to an empty gallery. His
hands caught her shoulders, the fingers gripping with
passion to her flesh. “Then what?”
he repeated. “Do you mean you care for
me? Do you mean that it’s so hard to go—­hard
to say good-bye because of that? Is that what
you mean?”

She could not answer yet. Even then the rope
was not drawn and she could still faintly feel the
scaffold boards beneath her feet.